Beyond the Prophecy
by agentjedi
Summary: Young Padawan Ben Skywalker faces the death of his Yuuzhan Vong friend and fellow Jedi learner.


**TITLE:** Beyond the Prophecy  
**AUTHOR:** agentj  
**STATUS:** complete  
**DATE:** February, April 2005  
**CATEGORY:** Vignette: Angst  
**CHARACTERS:** Ben Skywalker, Luke Skywalker (minor), Corran Horn (minor), original character (Kaleb, minor)  
**TIMEFRAME:** Post-Saga: beyond New Jedi Order  
**CONTENT WARNING:** character death, self-mutalation  
**SUMMARY:** Young Padawan Ben Skywalker faces the death of his Yuuzhan Vong friend and fellow Jedi learner.  
**AUTHOR'S NOTES:** Originally inspired by the Obi-Wan Kenobi Expanded! challenge and the scene from the Infinities comic which is mentioned in the story. This story takes place far enough in the future that the Yuuzhan Vong now have Force-sensitive children.  
**DISCLAIMER:** I willingly and willfully use characters and situations copyrighted by Twentieth Century Fox and Lucasfilm Ltd. without permission, and without monetary gain. Additional characters and situations are copyright 2005 Lisa D. Jenkins.

* * *

Ben Skywalker stared at his right hand. Snake-like tendrils wrapped themselves around his palm and down his lower arm in swollen red welts where the laser whip had entwined itself around it. 

His arm hurt. It hurt a lot. 

But his arm hurt less than the pain constricting around his heart. 

Kaleb was dead. 

One moment, Kaleb was there beside him, bravely fighting against the Dark Lord Followers, his lightsabre swinging. The next...he was gone. 

There had been no time to double back, no time to signal their masters to let them know of the trap that lay in wait for the Jedi. The Followers had sensed the Padawans through the Force, leaving Ben and Kaleb alone to fight for their lives. 

Ben had faced the Dark Lord Followers before. Years ago, he snuck into their camp as one told the tale of a certain lightsabre's journey from one master to another. Once fashioned by Anakin Skywalker, the Chosen One of the Force, the sabre was lost by his son Luke Skywalker, the new hope for the galaxy. It was he, Ben Skywalker, son of Luke, grandson of Anakin, who found the sabre and reclaimed it for his heritage. He took the sabre from the Dark Follower's hand and challenged them for it. That day, he had the advantage of surprise. And although Ben had claimed the Jedi tool for his father, it was his father who returned it to him, passing down the legacy from one Skywalker to the next. 

The lightsabre clung at Ben's utility belt. 

Ben eyed the sabre hilt warily. The tool which was his life, had become Kaleb's death. 

Ben flexed his injured hand. Pain shot up his arm, reminding him he was still alive. 

Unlike Kaleb. 

Squeezing his eyes closed, Ben let the memory wash over him. 

Ben felt the disturbance first. Kaleb, his face lined with swirling etchings of his Yuuzhan Vong clan, felt it only a hair's breath later. By then, it was too late. The Dark Lord Followers had clouded their senses long enough to draw them into the trap. Their lightsabres sprang to life, the blue haze of Ben's sabre providing a shield against their attackers as his hands moved swiftly, becoming a blur. The pale amethyst of Kaleb's sabre pierced through the Follower's offense, causing their attackers to hesitate. 

Ben had felt certain the Force was guiding them to victory—too certain. In a moment of overconfidence, Ben's guard was down, and a Dark Follower managed to lasso a laser whip around his sabre's blade. With a tug, the hilt jerked out of his hands, its blade deactivated as it flew away from him. Before Ben could call it back to his hand, the laser whip lashed out again, this time entwining itself around his outstretched right hand. The Dark Follower pulled with a hard jerk, and Ben screamed in pain as it felt like his whole arm was on fire. 

Without a thought to himself, Kaleb brought his sabre's blade to bear on the whip. The energy of the two weapons sizzled, but the power of the Jedi's blade was far greater than the laser of the whip. The wire broke, freeing Ben. 

Another Dark Follower had grabbed Ben's sabre, rushing up behind the Yuuzhan Vong boy. In one fluid motion, the Dark Follower had pushed the hilt of the sabre against Kaleb's back and ignited the blade. Ben watched in horror as surprise lit Kaleb's face, and a bright blue point shot out of his chest. 

"**NOOOO!**" Ben screamed as if the moment could be undone. 

But it could not. 

His father and Master Corran Horn had come, but too late. Luke slashed the Dark Follower who had slain Kaleb, cutting the creature from shoulder to navel in one liquid movement, but it had not saved Kaleb. The blade of Ben's sabre had already pierced Kaleb's heart. 

The boy had fallen soundlessly at Ben's feet, a smirk playing upon his ashen lips. Despite the pain shooting up his right arm, Ben clasped his friend and fell beside him as the battle between the Followers and the Jedi Masters raged on. 

"Kaleb...," Ben begged for his friend to hold on to life, to draw on the Force and keep himself alive. 

"Stay alive, Jedi Bendu," Kaleb's throat gurgled as life ebbed from him. 

"No," Ben urged his friend, "no, you must—" 

As Ben watched, the light drained out of Kaleb's dark eyes. Then he was gone. 

A tear rolled down Ben's cheek as he reopened his eyes and glanced out at the forest clearing. He couldn't remember how he got here. After the battle, Ben tore himself away, running blindly through the forest. He felt his father call after him in the Force, but did not give chase. Jedi wisdom had held his father back, knowing this was a trial only his son could face. 

Ben stopped running when he came to the clearing, sinking to his knees as he clutched his arm, still wracked with pain. 

Ben scraped his fingernails against the dark red welts, drawing blood. 

He should have been the one to die, not Kaleb. 

Ben felt a presence. 

Looking up, Ben saw a figure of a young boy standing there. His homespun Jedi robes were spotless, gleaming white in the sunlight. Ginger-colored close-cropped hair stood out in spikes around the boy's face. A tightly twisted braid fell down below the boy's right ear and over his shoulder. The boy's lips curled upward in a pleasant bemused demeanor while his misty grey eyes flashed with compassion. 

"Who are you!" Ben demanded. 

The boy, not much older than Ben, pressed his pale lips into a smile. "Family," he said in a voice that belonged to an older man. 

Ben reached out into the Force to feel the boy's intentions. Instead of sensing just one being, he sensed many. "Sekot?" 

"No," the boy answered, the smile never fading from his lips, "not Sekot." 

Still, Ben sensed this was not a singular entity, but another made of many souls. Reaching out, Ben tried to touch the boy-man in front of him. 

Without moving, the boy shrank away from his touch. 

"Who are you!" Ben demanded again. 

"I told you," the boy answered in that deep voice that flowed over Ben like water, "I am family." 

Ben eyed the being warily. "What do you want of me?" 

With simply his eyes, the boy seemed to smile wider. "To live, Jedi Ben Skywalker." 

_Kaleb?_ Was this somehow a kind of apparition from the Force itself, guided by the spirit of his friend? 

Desperately, Ben reached out again, and again the apparition shrank from his touch without appearing to move. 

"You must live, or the Yuuzhan Vong will die," the boy directed him. 

"What do you mean!" Ben questioned, desperate for understanding. 

"Live, Jedi." 

The boy faded away from sight, leaving Ben alone with more questions than answers. 

Staring in the space where the stranger once stood, Ben let his anguish wash over him and carry him where it may. 

His eyes strayed down to the metallic cylinder that hung heavily at his hip. _No, the Yuuzhan Vong will never die,_ Ben agreed. He could not halt the inevitable, Ben knew. He could not stop death. But through him, the Yuuzhan Vong would live. Starting with Kaleb's memory. 

Seizing the lightsabre from its holster, Ben brought the blade to life with its usual _snap-hiss_ and twisted the controls to shorten its length. Fire alight in his eyes, he considered the glow extended in front of him. Ben set his jaw, then with determination, brought the blade's tip to his cheekbone. 

Ben's scream pierced the dense thicket. Luke felt his son's physical pain as well as his emotional turmoil through the Force. Turning away from his task of gathering the Dark Lord Followers' bodies to the funeral pyre, Luke took off with inhuman speed toward the nucleus of the disturbance. 

Luke found his son kneeling in a clearing, balled into a fetal position with his arms twisted tightly around him, rocking back and forth. His lightsabre lay before him. 

Sinking to his knees, Luke put his hands around his son's shoulders. "Son...," he began. 

Then he saw it. 

Ben had carved Kaleb's clan symbol into his own flesh with a shaky hand. 

"Oh, Ben...," Luke sighed sadly. Pressing his son's body into his own, Luke lay there with him, a cloud above passing over them. 


End file.
